Reflection Paper

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I figured I might as well post this. It's a bit more in depth because it is my final paper for this course (and for college). It's pretty long- but there are memories and stories laced through the whole thing. Mostly, I'm posting it for me later on when I want to look back.

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For two weeks I traveled almost daily on a bus or an airplane. Over this time, I also traveled from moment to moment in my growth, understanding, and curiosity. Two weeks felt like an eternity sometimes, and also as though there was no possibility for me to ever catch the time I would need to fully understand a new culture, myself, the people around me, and the true impact of the project. The Jewish cemetery restoration project is ongoing and continuous, not just a few weeks of work. Each day saw continual progress. Stones were pulled from the ground leaving reminders and renewed memories about the people laid to rest in the location. Branches and brush were cut down and destroyed, just as the cultural boundaries with the villagers and personal boundaries within the group of Americans were removed. Such removal of debris cleared the way for a new perspective and clearer understanding. Just as the trees gave way to a view of the lake, the stones, and a new fence, our work and communications gave way to new viewpoints about people and places, as well as about ourselves.

I sit writing in a place that feels like home, that is comfortable and familiar and warm. However, Belarus earned such feelings. Minsk and Rubieczevichi were two very different places. Minsk was this big city reminding me very much of Warsaw- a place I know and love well. This city did not feel like home though. The small village we worked in felt more like home after a week than I could ever have imagined. The warmth of friends and families knows no boundaries. Such emotions can cross language barriers, cultural divides, and a lack of understanding. Sitting with our home stay family after a night of confusion and frustration is one of my fondest memories. Nothing truly unique or extraordinary was occurring on the surface. Deep down though, there was some connection through pictures of the work in the cemetery, the travels in Poland and Belarus, and family. I listened as Allyson communicated her thoughts and ideas more clearly with our family than she ever had before. Our host sisters communicated through some of the biggest, warmest hugs I have ever received. The younger one even fell asleep with her arm wrapped tightly around me. Such was the comfort we all felt with each other. Both parties really committed before taking a leap of pure faith. Neither party knew what to expect, how safe they would be, or what cultural boundaries would be accidentally crossed. In light of all such concerns, I found a place to feel safe and happy at the end of the day, regardless of how much my body hurt, how tired or dirty I felt, what has happening outside the walls of the house, or how truly foreign we were. Before falling asleep at the end of the day, Allyson and I would talk and reflect. One comment that was continually stated was that we both felt as though we had been blessed with one of the most wonderful families in the village. I say that meaning nothing negative about other members of the community, only that we were completely unable to imagine a more wonderful group of people. Our host mother did everything she could to help us feel at home and comfortable and relaxed- including a trip to the banya. She helped Allyson mail postcards, offered to let us call home from her house, had warm breakfast on the table in the morning, and gave so many hugs. Neither one of us Americans could walk down the street without holding hands with at least one person. One night we took a walk and four American girls along with four Belarusian girls went down the street arm in arm. No, this wasn’t home, but if I had to travel and be away from my family then this is where I would want to be.

Constant personal reflection and questioning occurred. From areas including religion and forgiveness to personal understanding and patience for others, I was always thinking. There were many times when I believed frustration would get the best of me and I recently have found great difficulty with patience for others. Perhaps this was a place where I needed growth. Working on such a project where there were truly traumatic and serious issues made petty conflicts among the group irritating. I came to realize, however, that the level of trauma does not justify ignoring the situation. Just because a person’s problem seems less devastating than another does not make the emotions any less valid. In my own personal journey, this was one of the most difficult understandings for me to accept. I had almost no tolerance for what I viewed to be wrong choices. I hope that this trip has helped me to be more compassionate towards others, regardless of how simple the problem seems in my head. Everyone has their own journey when dealing with pain, just as I do. When this trip originally came to Siena I was quite interested in the project. However, certain circumstances held me back from actually pursuing the trip. Issues with an individual already active in the project prevented me from taking the chance. I knew this time that the possibility existed for this individual to be present again. We hadn’t been in contact in almost two years, and while I was not looking forward to seeing her again, I was prepared to handle the situation this time. I did not want this opportunity to pass me by as I had let it before. As I look back on the memories of this trip, I’m happy that I decided to pursue this opportunity. First, because this was a great way to finish my senior year. The class provided me with an opportunity to take a course in something I have a great interest as well as being much less stressful than any other class I could have taken to complete my needed credits. The work was simply interesting and enjoyable. Second, I met a group of people that I really wouldn’t have come into contact with otherwise. I knew a few individuals on a casual basis, and even Allyson and I became so much closer, both before and during the duration of the course. Finally, I know that I’ve put the feelings regarding this person in my life aside. Not only was I able to deal with it on my own, but also to gain some insight based on other experiences and discussions about what had happened. I like to think that if I were to see this person again that I would have no hard feelings. Hopefully this is the case. I think it is and I believe that this course and trip somehow had a great impact, even if the issue was never a course topic.

While discussing the events of this trip with my mom, she asked me if I thought that this trip had made me a new person. This is honestly a difficult question to answer. I know I’m significantly more tan and I have a new appreciation for oranges and bananas. There are deeper implications here, however. I truly might be someone new. I hope that I was able to grow based on this trip. Two weeks is not so much time, yet they were two very full weeks. We were not given much time to be idle and so these two very full weeks provided each of us with numerous opportunities to try new tasks and think new thoughts. Since I was meeting so many new people, I was also meeting a lot of new ideas of thought and encountering other very strong personalities. Especially towards the end of the two weeks, I found myself trying different approaches towards situations that were irritating or contained the sparks to ignite a conflict. This was a more challenging period since everyone was tired and homesick- myself included. Both of these factors test the ability to handle minor situations. Regarding the topic of the cemetery and history, I think I have grown in my understanding of the events and the long term implications. So often in our studies, history seems as though it is just fiction. These horror stories are not always real to us as we read stories or watch films. For me, listening to the woman who had lived through the terror, had tried to help save other, and had somehow survived made everything become so real. This was no longer a story in a book. Instead these were memories that were as real for her as my memories of pulling the stones from the ground are today. So in answer to the question posed by my mom, yes, I know that I am a different person now.
While I understand that the purpose of this trip was not political in nature, I know that we played a very political role. At a time when even ambassadors have been deemed unwelcome, we came with backpacks and small gifts to form relationships with Belarusians. I found the fact that citizens can be civil with citizens of other countries when governments are at odds to be rather incredible. Perhaps governments are not so representative of the people. As we were waiting to leave for JFK airport that first day, one of the other students was telling us things that she had read about traveling to Belarus right now and none of the concepts that she shared were very positive. However, there were really no problems for us at any point. Precautions were taken to avoid any minor problems and our reception was an overwhelmingly welcoming one. Later, during our visit to the American Embassy, I was surprised to discover just how many ties between the two countries had been severed. Suddenly, equipment had been destroyed and military personnel sent home to the US. Yet, everyone still remaining in the country was upbeat and happy to have us. They expressed little concern to us about the current situation, and in retrospect I’m hoping that this is not because they were trying to prevent us from feeling uneasy. We were made to feel safe and secure, as well as though we were really doing something good by being in this country during a time when most people might cancel plans to travel. As I heard what was going on abroad, I was also a bit nervous about what to expect. I’m really truly happy that we did not cancel our plans. This experience was so important and so rewarding, especially because of this political conflict.

Remembrance of loved ones was such an integral part of this project. None of the village children, reporters, or Americans knew a single person in this cemetery. This meant nothing though. All of us had lost someone, someone who more than likely had a proper funeral and family members to visit with flowers and warm memories. In each of us, these people have some who will honor their memory and remember the beautiful contributions the deceased left for the world. Our work commemorated these people and also remembered those family members who were unable to be there preserving the memories. Listening to the woman who had survived through the war’s atrocities made this whole project very real for me. Her story could so easily have been the story told by one of my family members. In addition, her tears and thanks enforced the validity of our mission. I know that I had questioned the true importance of such a project. Perhaps I was unable to comprehend the extensive trauma which tore so much of the community apart. My favorite place in the cemetery was at the top of the hill in the center. From this point I could see almost everything. The gate at one side and the fence enclosing the last side of the cemetery, each stone that had been recovered and cleaned, and the clear ground provided a greater understanding of the important difference we had made. Perhaps such a view was self-gratifying, yet this place also displayed the beauty of hard work and the human heart without any obstruction.

Jewish culture is not something I am very familiar with, even now. However, I do remember something that Michael said at the ceremony that I am familiar with. He spoke of helping those who can not help themselves. The speech included the importance of genuine kind deeds and the difference that such deeds make for others. We don’t live just for ourselves and for our own purpose. The world is a community and we are each a small part of that community. Projects like ours reinforce that community and the service work we each completed formed bonds and relationships. Perhaps this is the reason why interfaith projects can be such a success. Even though this was a project focusing on the Jewish community on and on Jewish burial practices, we were Catholics doing this restoration. Underneath all of these titles though, we’re all people with an understanding of what is right in this world and the importance of human dignity. This understanding may have been what helped our group to get past language, culture, and religion barriers. More often than not, I didn’t even remember that this was a Jewish cemetery. In my mind, this was a cemetery that had been destroyed during a time in history when part of my family structure had also been torn apart. This was a chance for me to restore a part of history that I was related to, instead of history that I had read in a text book.

In addition to being an important experience in itself, this trip also reinforced the decision I have made regarding the immediate time after graduation. I had been experiencing some doubts regarding my choices not to go to graduate school or to find a job immediately out of college. Instead, I’ve chosen to do some volunteer work and to continue working on determining what I really consider to be important in life. I’m burnt out with working and studying constantly. However, I’m not feeling this way because of the activities themselves. The emotions stem mainly from a lack of accomplishment. I know that I’ve worked hard and therefore feel great pride. However, I also am looking for a different form of accomplishment in knowing that I have used who I am and what I know to make a difference for people. Working with this project and the people participating provided me with a brief taste of such an accomplishment. I was able to immediately see the difference in the location as stones were erected and trees were cleared. The difference in the people was evident also. Teenagers from the town who came at first only to watch and smoke cigarettes eventually picked up a shovel or worked with these foreign Americans to pull large gravestones out of the ground. Maybe they didn’t work constantly, but they did help and they saw what we were doing. In addition, they also shared with us a different culture, just as we shared ours with them.

Eastern European culture and the differences from my own culture provided me with some challenges. Since I had been abroad a few times before, I believed that I would have no trouble adapting to another new environment. I was very much mistaken in assuming such an idea. Meals, which have never been a problem for me, were difficult but not impossible. My stomach craved vegetables and fruit instead of just meats and grains. Dairy products other than cheese and butter seemed not exist. The one morning I was offered sour cream I was unable to eat it because the contents of the bowl smelled and tasted like the inside of a cow barn. When giving our family the gifts from home that we had carried with us, there was some trouble in explaining the maple syrup that is so normal in the life of a northern New Yorker or Vermonter. This concept of syrup from a maple tree lacked any sense for our host family. In return, we were given a glass of birch sap- the only cold thing I had to drink in the town. Apparently this sap is also quite good for curing hangovers since Allyson and I were provided with large glasses of it at breakfast the morning after the banquet. While I felt fine that morning, I also felt as though I hadn’t had a glass of cold water in two weeks. I felt this way probably because every beverage we had, including most bottles of cola and milk, were all warm. Two cold glasses of this juice were easy to swallow in a hurry along with a shot of liquor that burned in my chest for half an hour. This really took away from enjoying a cold drink for the first time in two weeks. Daily life held the same strange experiences for me. When leaving the house on our first night in the village, we happened to be leaving at the same time that the cows were coming home (a phrase I never thought I would be saying when referencing actual events). We were literally walking up the street with a bunch of cows that were coming in from the pasture. I live in an area where there are farms on both sides of the road more often than not. Even still, walking down the road with cows was one of the strangest experiences for me during this trip. We were all forced to step outside the safe world of our comfort zone- a place of familiar tastes, common language, and distinguished boundaries. I doubt that any of us truly understood our current situation, yet many of us were able to adapt quickly to our new surroundings in an effort to gain from this trip. I watched as groups of young boys fell into a work pattern under the lead of an older American boy. There were also groups of young girls working hard to accomplish whatever task they had been assigned, and eventually warming to these strange foreigners who have somehow taken over the village. They transformed from hard-working, shy girls into hard-working, friendly, and warm girls. Perhaps each of the twenty Americans underwent some of these same positive changes.
The transformation of the group from the time in Krakow to the group in Belarus was rather incredible. In Poland, we were not a team yet. Instead, we were just a random class of students thrown on an airplane and dropped in Europe. Personally, I had very few connections within the group. I was somewhat skeptical of everyone, even the people I knew from other classes or had worked with on other projects. Finally, we were set to work together and a sense of teamwork was ever present. Of course, there were differences from time to time, yet these small issues really did not change the fact that we were going to complete this work in the time we had been allotted. There were times when I really felt as though I didn’t know what I could be doing, and I think a lot of that has to do with the rate and enthusiasm that work was being completed. So many people were there to work that tools were often hard to hold onto. One or two people would be working on a task, and all too often others would come into the area to help. Suddenly too many people were working in one place to allow for work to get done. Such was the enthusiasm for each task and the change within our group. These experiences changed all of the involved parties to different people than those who arrived on the first day.

Now that I’ve said goodbye to everyone- friends, host families, teachers- and taken a few days to come down from the high of such an experience, I’ve realized just how fulfilling everything was. I can look back now without seeing any of the small conflicts that occur inevitably. The good memories are so much more vivid than anything else. Standing at the top of the cemetery looking around, meeting people like Roma and my host family, dancing at the banquet, spending time with my host sisters and Allyson- these are all some of the most fantastic parts of this trip. The time away from home and regular life provided time to sort through so many thoughts and internal conflicts. We all worked to restore so much more than just one Jewish cemetery and I really believe that this is the most astounding part of the whole process.

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